Cable Break In for the Naysayers

@carlsbad2 can you please elaborate on what can possibly change in a vacuum tube throughout the course of the limited break in process you have come to accept as a phenomena?
And another question as you have a degree in physics…does a dielectric change at all in any way after the interaction with the electrons traveling on a surface of a copper wire? Is there a change at a molecular level in the dielectric or the surface of a wire or both?

I’m also trying to figure out what exactly goes thru the break in process in a Furutech Rhodium plated outlet that results in such a wild sonic rollercoaster?
I can’t explain it but would love to hear a scientific explanation. Or may be none exists. I may be going off the rails on a crazy train here because I can detect these changes…

The elephant in the living - the gauge of the cable wiring. For instance, on my system running Cornwall 4"s - a high efficiency speaker - changing speaker cable gauge has obvious and logical impacts on sound. Going from 10 gauge "western electric" cable to 16 gauge "western electric" modifies the sound hugely. Granted, I am sort of cheating here but am I really? To pretend that cables are all anonymous, identical non-entities is just too silly.

Good post @ozzy. A lot of the ASR folk state (with apparent absolute authority) that if you can’t measure it, you can’t hear it. I’d like to know approximately which year this started.

Was it true a hundred or two hundred years ago? In 1924, we had some very good tube amplifiers, not just for audio, but also long distance telephone and radio. Just how good was the test equipment back them? Sure they could measure distortion at a single frequency, up to a point. They also had wave analyzers (forerunner to spectrum analyzers and VNA). But really nothing super sophisticated. And yet engineers were able to design and build some very good quality amplification. My guess is that a lot of this was done by ear.

Therefore, at some point in our history there was a crossover? What year were measurements finally better than hearing?

Come on ASR people, when was it?

Ozzy break in and settling for at least six days is real .I agree with Ozzy I have the same experience over and over again for my more than 30 yrs in this hobby Those who don’t believe in breakin cables good lluck.

hagtech, jayctoy,

Thank you for your comments. It seems some of the cable deniers have died down.

I can understand their opinion if they have tried several types of cables and found no difference but to just out-right dismiss without hearing for differences it is hard to believe. At least, to those of us who value sound quality.

ozzy